


Waiting

by thecarlysutra



Category: Thunderheart (1992)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Injury, M/M, Sexual Politics, Strangers, Waiting, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2020-03-17 08:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18962005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: Ray waits for an update in the ER waiting room.This is actually a revamp of a series of exercises I did for a class in grad school, so it's a bit different than pretty much anything else I've written for this fandom. If you correctly guess the name of the class (it was an elective in my writing major with a very specific focus), I will write you the fic of your choice.





	Waiting

  
Ray leaned back in the not-so-plush waiting room chair, trying to find a position that didn't murder his back. An emergency room was like a sleep deprivation study: all bright lights and bone-biting cold and constant noise. Pages crackled over the intercom; nurses chattered to each other. Outside, ambulance sirens hooted to silence. A man behind the big bay doors that said EMERGENCY in all caps howled intermittently and clanked his handcuffs against the arm of his gurney.

Ray shifted again, and pulled his arms close to preserve heat. Just one minute of sleep.

***

Piper watched the bright red letters—EMERGENCY—reflected in the shiny silver skin of her nephew's Mylar balloon. The air conditioning was blowing, and it made the balloon bob like a buoy at sea—up and down, up and down. Nicky wrapped the balloon’s ribbon around his fingers, and the balloon inched lower. The shiny silver skin reflected smiling nurses in their crisp white uniforms, reflected the explosion of flowers her grandmother had brought—“It’s a boy!” spelled out backwards on the mirrored surface.

Piper wondered how much longer this birth thing would take. Grandma had fallen asleep, and Nicky was playing with his video game, so all she'd had to entertain herself for the past couple of hours was an ancient copy of _Highlights_ magazine. She looked around the waiting room. It was getting late, and there were fewer and fewer people. A woman slept beneath the staticky TV, wrapped in an enormous hoodie. There was an older man with a great hacking cough, and two teenagers in holey sneakers feeding dozens of quarters into the vending machines. A few chairs away, a tall man drowsed, arms crossed over his chest, head bent. 

An ambulance hooted from outside, and the tall man startled awake, half falling out of his chair. Piper laughed, and then immediately blushed—the tall man’s eyes were on her. 

“I’m sorry,” she said.

The tall man righted himself in his chair, shrugged.

“These chairs are terrible,” she tried.

The tall man shrugged again, his shoulders driving into the unyielding plastic back of his chair.

“I’ve had worse.”

Piper abandoned her battered copy of _Highlights_ and moved a few chairs closer. “What are you in for?”

The tall man’s eyes went to the double doors leading back to the emergency room proper. “My partner got hurt; he fell off a ladder. They won’t let me back.”

Piper’s eyes fell to the man’s hip—a holster. “Oh, so you’re, like, a cop.” 

The man colored beneath the harsh fluorescents. He played with the snap holding his gun in place. 

“Yeah,” he said, “but that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh. So you’re, like, gay-type partners.”

The tall man fastened his holster’s snap with a crisp click. “Right.”

“Oh, God, was that rude?”

“You’re fine. Why are you here?” 

Piper brightened. “Oh, my sister’s having a baby, and you can only have so many people back with you, so . . .” She motioned to the room around them. “I’m waiting!”

The tall man nodded, eyes on the big bay doors. EMERGENCY in all caps. “Boy or girl?” 

“Boy! Do you have any kids, you and your . . . ?” She trailed off, noticing for the first time that his dark pants were stained with blood. “Was he really high up when he fell?” 

“We don’t have any kids.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.” 

The tall man watched the white-clad nurses bustle about.

“I’ve been waiting a long time,” he said. 

The nurses in their hoarfrost uniforms bustled before the large double doors below the sign EMERGENCY written in all caps. The girl, her smile growing stale, studied her cuticles, her shoes, the worn linoleum beneath their feet.

Ray watched the double doors, hoping they would open to some vision of relief. The girl was too close. He could smell her shampoo, the industrial perfume smell of a salon, and it made his nose itch. He leaned back in his chair as far as the stiff plastic would allow, pressing his shoulders back to the point of pain.

The girl slid her eyes over to him, her mouth quirked hopefully. Ray looked away; he didn’t have anything comforting to say, to himself or anyone else. He watched the double doors. The paint on the edges was peeling and chipped, worn from so many hands pressing the doors open in too much haste to use the metal guards there for that purpose. What kind of hospital was this, that had peeling paint? Wasn’t everything supposed to be polished and sterile? What kind of place was this?

One of the nurses broke formation, pushed past the double doors. Ray craned his neck to see inside, but it was all alien, bright lights and strange machines. The girl said something, but the words walked by his ears. Ray watched the double doors swing shut again, and he pressed his shoulders back into his chair, and he closed his eyes. 

“I’m sure your friend will be fine,” Piper said again. Maybe he’d hear this time.

The tall man’s eyes fluttered open. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Oh! Well, we’re in a hospital, so . . .”

“No, I just—I need—I need some fresh air.” 

The girl watched him go, watched him push past the nurses and the admissions desk, past the moaning gunshot victim handcuffed to a chair—a knee shot, not fatal but damn painful—past the sliding glass doors that parted automatically, like they knew he was coming.

The sun was blood orange and low on the horizon, and the air was cool. Ray rubbed his palms over his bare arms and filled his lungs with crisp, pure, unconditioned air. It wasn’t as fresh as he’d hoped; it was scratchy with car exhaust.

Ray bent, hands on his knees, trying to make his head stop spinning. He would get through this. It was damn painful, but not fatal. 

Piper tried to think of something else, but she couldn’t get her mind to stick on anything but the tall man. He’d been gone a long time, all by himself. It was hard to be by yourself.

Piper walked carefully through the busy nurses and out the sliding glass doors to the ambulance bay. The sun was rising, casting the whole world orange. The tall man was leaning against the wall by the sliding doors, his skin cast bronze.

Piper came up beside him. She searched through her purse for a cigarette.

“Are you okay?” She tapped a cigarette from the pack into her waiting hand. “You want one?”

“I don’t smoke.” 

Piper slid the cigarette between her lips, put flame to the tip. “It helps me relax.”

The tall man sighed. “Look, you’re really very nice—”

“Piper,” she supplied.

A beat. Then, “Ray.”

Piper held out her hand, and Ray shook it on automatic.

“It’s pretty out, with the sun like this,” Piper said, shielding her eyes to get a better look at the coming morning.

“Yeah. I always liked this time of day; most people are still sleeping, so it’s like you’ve got the whole world to yourself. You could do anything.”

Piper exhaled slowly, and watched the sun through the smoke.

“I didn’t know you could talk that much,” she said, and Ray smiled. 

The sun was rising, but its heat had not yet permeated the crisp, cold morning. Piper and Ray stood at the back door to the ER, watching the ambulances taxi in and out, the smokescreen of Piper’s cigarette separating them. It had been a long night, and on into morning, but now the sun was coming up.

Piper lit another cigarette. Ray didn’t smoke, had in fact never smoked, not even as an act of teenage rebellion. He didn’t smoke and he didn’t drink, but in this moment he wished there was some chemical he could smoke or inject or place on his tongue like communion that would make this feeling roiling in his gut disappear.

The lit tip of Piper’s cigarette glowed orange as the rising sun. Ray stifled a cough, turned his face away. Squinted against the blinding face of the new sun.

It had been hours since his partner had disappeared behind the wide double doors of the emergency room, hours since he’d seen his face or felt the warmth of his hand. If they’d been husband and wife, he could be back there with him, not out here choking on cigarette smoke and worry. 

Most days, you just went along with life, not thinking of the road untraveled, but sometimes you took a hit and when you came to, you could see that other life—that parallel road untraveled—right alongside your own. And maybe that life would have been easier, but Ray knew for sure in this moment that he wouldn’t trade what he had. 

Anyway, the sun was finally coming up. It was a new day. 

Piper dropped her cigarette butt to the ground, crushing it beneath the toe of her boot. She checked her watch. 

“Long day.”

“Getting longer,” Ray said.

She cocked her head, studied Ray for a moment. “My dad used to say that.”

The corner of Ray’s mouth quirked up—almost a smile.

The glass doors parted; a nurse came out to join them. She checked her clipboard, looked at the two of them. 

“Sir, you were with the fall victim?”

Ray’s spine went straight. He swallowed, nodded.

“They’re ready for you to go back, now.”

“How is he?”

The nurse shook her head. “All they told me is they’re ready for you to go back.”

The nurse disappeared back behind the glass doors. Ray went to follow; Piper put her hand on his arm, and he turned back to her.

“I hope your friend’s okay,” she said. She dug through her purse a moment, coming up finally with a small teddy bear. She handed it to Ray. “Here. This was for the new baby, but—you should give it to your friend.” 

Ray surprised himself by hugging her, a rush of emotion crowding his chest.

Piper smiled and waved goodbye as Ray reentered the emergency room waiting room. 

Coming back from outside was like resurrection—a blinding shock of white light that faded into the bustle of life. The nurse with the clipboard affixed a visitor’s pass to Ray’s shirtfront, and pointed him back to the double doors beneath the sign written in all caps, EMERGENCY.

The doors were heavy, and it took Ray more force than he'd expected to part them. The world of the emergency room proper was a stark contrast to the still of the waiting room: everywhere there was movement; everywhere there was sound. The chaos muted when Ray saw Crow Horse, sitting on a gurney by the nurses' station, head bandaged, fingers worrying at the tape holding his IV in place.

"Leave it," Ray said, coming up beside him, his free hand resting on the guardrail. 

"Hell," Crow Horse said. "I don't take it out myself, they'll never let me out of here."

Ray's hand rested over Crow Horse's, and he quit picking. 

"Okay, _kola_ ," Crow Horse said softly. "It's okay."

" _You're_ okay," Ray stressed, hearing his voice break and not caring.

Crow Horse gave Ray's fingers a squeeze. "Just fine." The raw look didn't fade from Ray's face, so he added, "Honey, trust me. I been poked and prodded and x-rayed and all sorts of things. Prob'ly cost us a fortune, but—”

"I don't care about that."

"Oh, I imagine you will at the end of the month, when we're eating meat outta cans." 

"I'll complain then." 

Crow Horse sighed and leaned back against his thin pillow. Ray wanted to say something else, to try and encapsulate and explain everything he had felt over the past long hours, but the words didn't come. Instead, he squeezed Crow Horse's hand, and he smiled.  



End file.
